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Mexico's economy is hardly 'poor'
Date published: 7/9/2007 I agree that illegal immigration has potentially profound and negative social and economic consequences for the U.S. But to understand what to do about it, we first have to understand what causes the problem. Mexico is a poor country, you say? It might surprise readers to know that Mexico has an economy about that of South Korea, hardly a "poor" country. While South Koreans are twice as productive as Mexicans, and presumably might be expected to enjoy twice the standard of living, that doesn't explain the differences in behavior of these two countries' people. Why are South Koreans not leaving home to travel vast distances to a foreign country where they don't speak the language, to work endlessly at low-wage jobs, while Mexicans are? The answer, I suspect, has to do with the distribution of wealth in these two countries. One is equitable; the other isn't. It is a common rule of physics that things go from where there exists a bounty to where there is scarcity. For example, heat flows from an object that's hot to one that's cold and not vice versa. Yet in a socioeconomic sense, that is exactly what happens in countries like Mexico; wealth goes from where it is scarce to where it is plentiful, and hence we have to absorb the scarcity. It is time for the U.S. to adopt a policy of leaning on Mexico and countries like it to change that distribution formula to a more equitable one. You cannot build a wall around socioeconomic inequity. They tried that in Berlin, and we all know what happened there. And of the expatriate American who lives in Mexico and writes op-eds that are often critical of the U.S., I ask this: Perhaps he could write one explaining exactly how Mexico's system of economic redistribution works, and why it's so vastly superior to that of the United States. Peter A. Stabile Spotsylvania
Date published: 7/9/2007
The writer is correct that Mexico is discriminatory with
(posted by
GOUSA
, Sep. 25, 2007 2:41 pm)
its fiscal policies, ie, corrupt. This is a problem that lead to its poor financial status and while there are efforts to change, the problem is so ingrain as to make any effort much like that as removing sand from the beach. However, I disagree with the writer's use of S.Korea as an example to use. Korea is heavily subsidized and economically influenced for years by the U.S. America would not allow Korea to remain in 3rd status since that would allow the spread of communism. Very different from Mex.
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